Straight Shooter
by mikey magee
Summary: What's the difference between a coward who ran away, and a hero who stood up for what he believed in? To Finn, there the same thing, but Poe has a different opinion.


Finn took his rifle and aimed. The dusty air around him nearly choked his throat. It was so hard to breathe. So hard to keep his focus now. What was left for him? His finger on the trigger of his rifle shook and twitched.

"Calm down," he told himself. He reset himself, gazed out into the endless desert that stood before him, and settled his eyes on a small rock off into the distance. He steadied himself, took a deep breath, and fired. His blast soared through the air and hit his target with perfect accuracy.

"Very nice," said a voice in the distance.

Finn gently placed his rifle down, and attached it to his hips. "What're you doing here Poe?" Finn asked in a gruff voice.

Poe Dameron. The pilot who fought in the battle of Endor, just thirty years ago. The man was old (of course, that was something he hated to be called), but still as spry as any soldier anywhwere. Sometimes, he could even outrun Finn, if he wanted to.

"I didn't know Storm Troopers could be such good shots," Poe said as he patted Finn's shoulder.

"I'm a straight shooter," Finn said as he turned from the desert and towards Poe. "You wanna tell me what you're doing out here?"

Poe just shrugged, "I just wanted to come get ya'. Dinner's ready. You might want to hurry before Rey gets started. She's small but she can eat more than anyone."

It was a joke. Poe's own sense of humor that never really made sense to anyone else.

Finn just grabbed his rifle, intent on going back to shooting. "I'm not hungry."

This wasn't supposed to happen. Finn had been training for too long, worked too hard, and now he was on the run from his own platoon. He had left everything he had known behind, and all that was left was the rifle in his hands.

"You need to eat something kid," Poe said. "At least come back inside the ship," he thumbed back to the Phantom 5. "Come on, you look like you could use a meal."

Finn wasn't hungry, but he knew he wasn't in any position to turn away friends. Not after all that had happened. Finn had heard stories of the Empire, and the evil it caused. He had known tales of what the Stormtroopers, faceless thugs as they were called, did to the galaxy. How they were willing foot men for the emperor. But that was never something he believed…or rather, something he didn't want to believe. He had risen to the rank of Elite Guard, and since the Emperor's defeat all those years ago, the Stormtroopers became synonymous with justice. They were a force devoted to justice. They took an oath to justice.

But that was just another lie. Somehow, Klyo Ren, the leader of the Elite guard had deceived them all. He told Finn and the others that he was working towards peace, trying to bring about a fair future for the entire galaxy. And Finn believed him. Every broken promise. Every salted lie. Every glinted word. Just another way to use him and the other soldiers as a way to further his own power.

"That bastard," Finn muttered under his breath. He had to go. Finn had to leave and never return, taking nothing with him but his blaster, he defected from the Stormtroopers. His whole life, gone in moments like sugar in a warmed caff.

He was found by Rey, a tough as nails girl who took no nonsense from anyone. She saved his life…she saved it twice actually. Once from an explosion that nearly claimed his hide, and another from some pirate who wanted his hide as a throw rug. She was really something.

"Here we are," Poe said as he ushered Finn inside the warm hull of the Phantom 5. "Home sweet home." The Phantom 5 was a modest ship, something they might of used back in the dark times of the Empire. For all purposes it was an antique and belonged in a museum, not flying around star systems, evading blaster shots.

The meal was already prepared, sitting on the table, hot and waiting.

"Sit down," Poe said.

And Finn did so. The last time he had sat down for a meal was…with the other troopers back at the base. Alan, Joseph, Stew, Grangar, they were all good men. Just men. Men you would die for. Men who would die for you. Men who believed in a cause.

And now they were under the control of some corrupt bastard who cared nothing for them. Couldn't they be warned? Couldn't they be reasoned with? Finn couldn't even eat the meal in front of him, he felt like he had left a man behind on a raging battlefield. He felt like a coward.

"I know that look," Poe said. "Let me guess. Your entire world is crumbling down around you? And you feel like you're completely lost in unknown space without a tracking device, or an astrodroid, right?"

Finn looked up. "And what makes you think that?"

Poe laughed, "It's written all over your face kid. It's everywhere."

Finn really had to work on his sabaac face.

"And…" Poe began, "You're not a coward." Poe's face was illuminated in the ceiling lights. The Phantom 5 hummed a soft melody that only the jaded could believe in. "Granted, you tend to scream a lot when things get explode-y, and you tend to sweat the small stuff…a lot." Poe chuckled at the memory of first laying eyes of Finn, so much sweat dripped from his face it was like he had been swimming in it. "But you're a good man. You're brave enough to stand up for what you believe in." Poe shrugged and took a swing from his mug, "That takes guts. It takes a real straight arrow. A sharp shooter."

When he left Jakku for training, he believed he was going forward. Moving towards a future where everyone could prosper. Perhaps, his path was meant to be something different. Poe and Rey, each one with the heart of a soldier. He was a defector, that much was certain, but that didn't meant he had to stop fighting for justice. Klyo Ren would be stopped, and he would make sure it would come to pass. That's what Stormtroopers stood for, justice for all. He made an oath, after all.


End file.
